Does religion get a bad rap? with David Richards of the CFI Regina

In this episode David Richards of the Regina CFI talks with Mike, Raz, Destin and me about the Center For Inquiry, whether religion is positively harmful and freedom of expression.
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On Wednesday May 7, Saudi blogger and activist Raif Badawi was sentenced to 10 years in prison and 1000 lashes
in 2013 he was charged with insulting islam and violating the kingdoms cybercrime laws
he was found guilty and sentenced to 6 years and 700 lashes
he appealed and the new sentence is even worse
also included a 1 million riyal fine roughly 267k
They will of course appeal again but
Badawi's appeal will be complicated because his attorney and brother-in-law, Waleed Abulkhair, recently was put on trial for undermining the image of the kingdom and breaking allegiance with the King.

According to a huffpost blog by Elham Manea the judge recommended last December that the imprisoned blogger go before a high court on a charge of apostasy. A charge that carries the death penalty even though he has never renounced his religion.
- It is a strategy used since the creation of the Kingdom in 1932 to delegitimize any opposition to the rule of the Saudi dynasty.
"He is a prisoner of conscience who is guilty of nothing more than daring to create a public forum for discussion and peacefully exercising the right to freedom of expression.," said Philip Luther, director of the Middle East and North Africa program at Amnesty International.
Brings up an interesting question about freedom of expression. Is it universal?
http://www.billboard.com/articles/news/6077662/scorpions-drummer-released-from-dubai-jail
Scorpions drummer James Kottak was thrown in jail in Dubai because he allegedly ranted about uneducated muslims, covered his nose when he saw Pakistani and afghan passengers near him and supposedly mooned people. Was only sentenced to one month after being found guilty of insulting islam, raising his middle finger and being drunk while in transit.

I don't think there's much else to say about this episode, except to thank David Richards for joining us and playing the devil's advocate for religion. We seemed to inadvertently put Dave in an awkward position of defending something he didn't necessarily want to defend. It was a lot of fun and I hope he can join us again sometime to talk about something he doesn't have to defend against four of us.

Music for this episode was Satellite by Rise Against off the album Endgame

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